I used to have a bumper sticker on my car that read:

“Gentrification is the destruction of a community when it is referred to as ‘development’. It is characterized by adding things like coffee shops and art galleries and then rent increases to remove ‘undesirables’. At this point the yuppies move in.”

I'm not sure who wrote that, but that is what it said and I've seen this happen in my own downtown community. Low income people used to live and work near downtown, but everything has undergone a renovation and remodel, now the only people that can afford to live and shop downtown are primarily, "yuppies". It's awful, but at the same time, it looks really nice. I feel both good and bad about it. Downtown is now a destination and an attraction, but I feel awful for the people that were moved out. Low-income and even middle-income housing and retail should have been designed in the downtown area. Let's do something to change this, come up with some new ideas, and not have students as the only low-income people downtown.